...can fluoride interfere with absorption? well, it binds to everything. it makes sense to think it could. if i have some iron absorption issues to start with, it could be compounding.
fluoride is removed from your stomach quite fast, but as it builds up in your blood (to a peak, when it's excreted...most of it is eliminated after ten hours, at most, but sustained exposure can lead to a build up), it's been theorized that it may have some effect on hemoglobin function. again: that's a reasonable hypothesis, but testing hasn't borne it out. see as one example:
and, understand that giving a rat (which weighs much less than a kg) a constant source of 100 ppm fluoride is more than you could consume if you tried, short of injecting it.
still, this is something worth gnawing on. a basic understanding of chemistry tells you that fluorine doesn't exist in nature, on it's own. it took until 1986 to generate pure fluorine commercially - that's how hard it is to isolate. it readily ionizes in water, it's true, but you can't get it out....not by it's lonesome....
so, you put fluoride in your blood, and it's going to bind to something.
and, the flip side of the argument is that if you put fluoride in your food then you don't ingest the fluoride, either - not only does it interfere with your absorption of the vitamins, it essentially prevents you from absorbing the fluorine! it just neutralizes everything on the other side of the periodic table: potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium - all important minerals for proper bodily function. potentially...
so, (1) if you're going to consume any amount of fluoride at all, you should isolate it from meals, so it doesn't ruin the nutritional value of your food.
that includes fluoridated water - wait a half hour after drinking water, before you eat. and, drink unfluoridated water when taking food - or medication.
i'll make that adjustment, out of excessive caution.
but, what does fluoride look like when it enters your bloodstream?
it seems it enters it dissolved as an anion - as F-. in that case, it could potentially wreak havoc.
it's the only way to get it in your saliva, though, and that's the only form of it that's been proven to actually work.
regardless, i think i want to isolate this from food - once a day, before sleeping, rather than throughout the day.
so i'm going to produce another update.
am i tired because the fluoride is breaking my hemoglobin? all the science they've done says that's not how it works. but, if i'm susceptible to anemia for whatever other reason, it could conceivably be an increased risk factor.
nothing's simple, huh?